Overriding ASP.NET MVC custom templates

The Add View dialog perform code generation that use T4 templates behind the scenes. These templates can be modified to customize the generated code from these tools. You can also add custom templates.

Basically you have to copy the default templates to your project. This is the path:

Understanding .resx file format

The .resx resource file format consists of XML entries, which specify objects and strings inside XML tags. One advantage of a .resx file is that when opened with a text editor (such as Notepad or Microsoft Word) it can be written to, parsed, and manipulated.(…) Each entry is described as a name/value pair.(…) When a string is added to a .resx file, the name of the string is embedded in a <data> tag, and the value is enclosed in a <value> tag

For a resource file like this:
You have the corresponding XML:
I created a custom template that generates the resource file in the specified format.

Creating resource files

Add a strongly-type view using the custom template and the resource file will be generated for you:

This is the generated file:

It’s necessary to edit the generated text. I decided to surround some properties with [[propertie-name]] – this way is easy to replace it using Find-Replace inside a text editor. Don’t forget to set the Access Modifier property to Public

Set the following properties of the resource file:

Rebuild the Web application and you’re ready to use the generated resource.

Creating localized views

Add a strongly-typed view:

This is the generated code. Set the namespace to the same value you used in the resource file properties:

That’s it! The view will reference all the values that were created in the resource file.

Is there any way this can be done with database as backing storage? Have looked around and found only the Tausens Localization library at http://www.tausens.com/using-the-localization-library, but that’s closed source. How would I go about implementing something similar to this?

Try to download and run the demo project, it will be easier for you to understand. It’s just like adding a new view, all you need to do is to repeat the following step for every language that you’ll need: